drove
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L319814 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /dɹəʊv/ / /dɹoʊv/
noun
Etymology: From Middle English drove, drof, draf, from Old English drāf (“action of driving; a driving out, expulsion; drove, herd, band; company, band; road along which cattle are driven”), from Proto-Germanic *draibō (“a drive, push, movement, drove”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreybʰ- (“to drive, push”). Cognate with Scots drave, dreef (“drove, crowd”), Dutch dreef (“a walkway, wide road with trees, drove”), Middle High German treip (“a drove”), Swedish drev (“a drive, drove”), Icelandic dreif (“a scattering, distribution”). More at drive.
- A cattle drive or the herd being driven by it; thus, a number of cattle driven to market or new pastures.
- A large number of people on the move.
“in droves”
- A group of hares.
- A road or track along which cattle are habitually, used to be or could be driven; a droveway.
- A narrow drain or channel used in the irrigation of land.
- A broad chisel used to bring stone to a nearly smooth surface.
- The grooved surface of stone finished by the drove chisel.
verb
Etymology: From earlier drave, from Middle English drave, draf, from Old English drāf, first and third person singular indicative preterite of drīfan (“to drive”).
- To herd cattle; particularly over a long distance.
“He's droving now with Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh.”
“He was droving his mob of fats to Derby, to ship by the southern boat for Fremantle.”
- To finish (stone) with a drove chisel.